Neighborhood in the news: Protesting for DREAMers; the “patriotic” vintner; reducing food waste

This one’s for the DREAMers: Students from Wilson High and other area schools walked out of class on November 9th and converged on the Capitol to urge Congress to pass a standalone DREAM act before December recess. Here’s WAMU’s writeup, and we highly recommend The Wilson Beacon’s story on the event.

When UDC was a vineyard: WETA’s Boundary Stones blog writes about John Adlum, a vintner who believed it was his “patriotic duty to document, preserve, and make use of native grapes.” When did he do this? 200 years ago. And where? A large plantation that covered today’s Van Ness, Forest Hills and Springland Farm (aka North Cleveland Park) areas.

Don’t throw that out: Food Recovery Week in late October highlights restaurant food waste and the ways restaurants can work to reduce it. One is to donate what’s left, as described in WAMU’s story: “On a recent morning, Urbank stopped at Bread Furst on Connecticut Avenue, Northwest, a James Beard Award winning bakery, to collect bags of bagels and deli salads. She packed it in the back of her station wagon and drove across the city to Casa Ruby on Georgia Avenue, Northwest a center for LGBT homeless youth.”

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Another is to find new ways to use food scraps. Some restaurants featured “recovery dishes” during the week. Little Red Fox’s contribution to the cause was ricotta “made from steamed milk left over in the pitchers after a coffee is poured.”

And early this month, UDC hosted the National Food Recovery Dialogue conference on addressing and reducing food waste.

We’re the best (again): Every “best of” list has to include at least one local eatery. Or we’re getting spoiled by the attention -and our local eateries! The Washington Post’sguide to the best breakfast spots in DC includes Little Red Fox and Bread Furst.

And people who filled out the Express newspaper’s “Best of DC” survey decided Comet Ping Pong has some of the best pizza in DC, Pho 14 serves up some great pho, and Little Red Fox is a darned good bakery.

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